Gear

Going Once, Going Twice: An Unreal Lot of Turbocharged Porsches

The Drendel collection is more than a collection. It is a potted education in the history of blown Porsches, and its sale is a landmark event.
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1995 Porsche 911 GT2

This is the most ordinary piece of extraordinary here. This 911 GT2 — essentially a customer car built for top-level sports-car racing — is relatively unimpressive technically, but a perfect example of Porsche's latter-day customer-competition-car philosophy. The 993-chassis 911 GT2 racing car (yes, there was a street car) was a purpose-built, turn-key competition machine, one Porsche was willing to sell to anyone with the right amount of cash. (Believe it or not, this is not always a given in top-level motorsport. When it comes to buying fast unobtainium, connections often matter more than money.) It was legal for FIA competition, among other things, and required little more than a talented driver and an engineer capable of dialing in a chassis at a race track. The 3.6-liter, twin-turbo boxer six was good for 450 horsepower. If you were of proper means, you could walk into a Porsche dealer, order one and then take it to Le Mans. And possibly win your class. This particular GT2 won its class at the 1996 12 Hours of Sebring and finished second in class at the 1997 24 Hours of Daytona. It was originally campaigned by Champion Porsche of Pompano Beach, Florida, and cost around $180,000. Drendel bought it in 2002 as a bookend to his collection — the GT2 remains the ultimate evolution of the air-cooled turbo 911. Plus, there's that wing. Who doesn't love big wing? It is expected to fetch $375,000 to $425,000. Photo: Pawel Litwinski/Gooding & Co.